The Shadow Game
by Fallowdoe
Summary: Spike returns from Africa out for revenge. What he finds instead changes him forever. This is not for the faint of agnst.


--- The Shadow Game ---  
  
He'd get her. Now the playing field was even, and she would pay.  
  
He walked through the familiar graveyard, and could sense her presence there. So strange to see these stones-the names they bore that felt like old friends. It had been so long, he had seen so much-he had thought of nothing through it all save this one goal, to which he was coming closer with each step. He could smell her, hear her movements-could practically see her in his mind's eye, so closely he had attuned himself to her presence. And that strong, feminine essence fought through the wind like a torrent, bending over tombstones and through branches until it reached him. The heat of it-of smelling it, the anticipation it brought-it was like making love.  
  
But this wasn't about love. And he'd gone, and he'd been returned the soul, and so he knew it would be a fair fight. And she'd get what she deserved, and she would shatter with it, just liked she'd shattered him under her dainty little heel.  
  
No-- this had nothing to do with love. It was almost true, and he almost believed it.  
  
He walked briskly, but did not run, as he came nearer. He stepped with a purpose up to the side of a crypt. He could feel her close now. He could now hear her cries as she fought a group of what he assumed were vampires. He stayed behind the crypt wall, breathing in the cooling fall air, waiting and imagining her battle behind his eyelids- consuming it, enjoying its embers like a cigarette.  
  
The image of her fighting, as he sensed her-alone, thrown full-tilt into a desperate battle. He'd always felt these were her best moments-the moments she truly knew herself and her place in the world-her moments of pure glory. And he wanted to face her in that moment, create it between them one last time-end it in a deathgrip that would be her greatest moment, and, if luck was with him, her last.  
  
Suddenly, he heard a chilling scream. Its preternatural, nearly inhuman tone-- its sheer desperation would have prompted him forward if his resolve were not so cold.  
  
He maintained his hiding place, but it worked on his resolve, melted it a moment. He should help her, he could sense her fighting all alone and struggling. Maybe, maybe he should leap forward, say something characteristically annoying and swagger to the rescue.  
  
To her rescue.  
  
But no. That's long done. He had to remember what this was all about.  
  
And so he waited. And the cries of rage quieted, and were silent.  
  
If there were anytime to make his move, it was now. He stepped forward from his hiding place, and turned to where he could see her at last.  
  
And all the rage died in his heart. Only he remained.  
  
Buffy knelt to where Dawn lay broken next to her, a lightweight sword flung carelessly from her lifeless arm. Her neck rested at an unnatural angle against her sister's knee. Her eyes stared blankly into the dark sky.  
  
Buffy looked up as she heard him approach, slowly, as if by some distantly remembered instinct. Her eyes were dry and empty. If they spoke of anything at all, he could not understand their desolate language.  
  
He had only sensed Buffy. Perhaps because the two had shared their blood, perhaps because his mind had been so focused. His throat tightened. He felt a dull buzzing in his skull, a sudden weakness in his legs.  
  
Her hand rested limply on her sister's forehead, an she stared through him, showing no surprise or particular interest at his return. He vaguely wondered if she could even recognize him through her shock. And they were left to stare at each other.  
  
"She said..." Buffy whispered to him flatly and without emotion, "She said I was smothering her, that I needed to show her my life-that she'd watched. that she knew what to do-- she said it, and I agreed with her..."  
  
Her voice faded into a broken, endless silence while his rose in a desperate sob. 


End file.
